I recently had the opportunity to watch all ten episodes of the brilliant Ken Burns’ documentary, “The Vietnam War.” In episode nine, I was introduced to the phrase (which was the title of the episode) – “A Disrespectful Loyalty.” Seeing the Vietnam War era footage of mass protests reminded me of the broad spectrum of local and national protests that have been building momentum since the presidential election about a year ago. And then this recent headline (October 28, 2017): Americans are facing the largest social and political crisis since the Vietnam War, according to new poll results

Authors and poets often use metaphors to convey their true meaning. Nobel Prize winning (for Literature) Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was especially adept at the use of metaphor to convey images – take this example from Neruda’s love poem If You Forget Me:

We like to think that our workplace can be inviting, like a second home. It’s where we spend a lot of our time, so we want it to be free from hostility. Although we generally aspire to make our workplaces welcoming, there may be people—or just that one person—who make it anything but welcoming for everyone else. Disgruntled employees are more common than we would like to believe, but alas, they are there making your life a living hell.

As I survey the landscape these days it seems that somewhere along the line we may have lost/forgotten/misplaced our “moral imagination” (this was the phrase used by former Library of Congress Poet Laureate Robert Haas during my recent visit to the 12th bi-annual Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo Village, New Jersey…the four day festival was truly one of the most inspirational experiences of my life). The financial markets are in chaos, global geo-political initiatives appear frustrating and confusing at best, and as Bill Maher recently asked on his HBO talk show: “Are you better off than you were 4 days ago?”

World affairs can be a source of concern to all of us: the threat of nuclear war, widespread poverty and economic instability, random terrorist attacks, social and political chaos and psychological upheavals of many kinds. The world is in absolute turmoil. Where can we find the wisdom to solve the world’s problems?

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